OPINION:
Democratic political analyst Mary Anne Marsh on Fox News said former National Security Adviser John Bolton should be called to testify before the Senate on impeachment because he’d be the first witness in this whole impeachment process who could offer firsthand knowledge on what President Donald Trump said, or didn’t say, about Ukraine and foreign aid.
This is an astonishing admission.
What Marsh was saying was what Trump, the White House, Republicans and anyone watching this impeachment process with a clear mind, absent political hate of this president, have been saying all along: that none of the witnesses in the House provided any factual testimony.
That not one of the supposed golden boy or gal witnesses gave any testimony that amounted to factual, evidence-based reasons to impeach Trump.
And put that together and what Marsh was saying but not saying was this: The House had no reason to impeach. The Senate, therefore, should not even be having to hold hearings on whether or not to convict.
It’s all a sham.
A shady, shameful, partisan hit job sham.
The question to Marsh was this: So why should John Bolton be called to the Senate to testify?
Her answer was this: “We have not had firsthand [testimony] in any of this.”
And she’s quite right. All the House witnesses dragged into the media spotlight by Reps. Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler could only supply presumptions, assumptions, best guesses of motivations, and so forth, based on second- and third-party hearsay.
By that measure alone, the process should’ve ground to a halt.
It should’ve stopped in the House.
But because the House is dominated by Democrats, the articles of impeachment were carried into the Senate — where we’re now all treated to the House managers’ attempt to twist the arms of senators to abide Democratic Party will.
The leak of Bolton’s book is the latest wind beneath the Democrats’ wings toward impeachment. Who knows where it will lead. Likely, just like everything else the left has thrown at this impeachment charade, the media will run with the Bolton headlines, the Democrats will squeeze what they can and hopefully, fingers crossed, a couple of Republicans in the Senate might jump aboard the bandwagon to stretch out the impeachment testimony well into 2020 elections.
And when it’s discovered in the end the hyped headlines don’t meet the hype? Well, like all the other Democratic tries on impeachment — move on, find another nugget to exploit, dig up the next magic impeach bean.
But as Marsh said but didn’t say: Without the help of the left-leaning media, without the deceits and smoky mirrors of the anti-Trump Democrats, impeachment would never have made it this far. Impeachment wouldn’t even be a thing.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
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